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253. "I am dying, Egypt, dying.”

This might be supplied

"O, I am dying, Egypt, dying; pr'ythee "Give me some wine," &c.

254. "The crown o' the earth doth melt: My

lord."

A word is wanting: I suppose it was away."

66 melt

“O wither'd is the garland of the war." Lee has imitated this in Theodosius:

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O you have given

"A blight to the big blossom of the war." "The soldier's pole is fallen."

The standard round which the soldiers rallied. This I take to be the meaning.

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The measure is interrupted here. I would regulate

"Empress, my royal mistress!"
Iras, peace."

Charm. "

256. "To rush into the secret house of death."

A line much resembling this we find in King John:

"To rush into the bloody house of life."

257.

ACT V. SCENE I.

He mocks us by

"The pauses that he makes."

"Makes," i. e. artificially devises-counterfeits -what Lady Macbeth might call-" flaws and starts impostors to true policy."

261." That self hand."

Thus in King Henry V.

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262. "When such a spacious mirror's set before him."

The spacious mirror, I suppose, is the ample world, which, by the death of Antony, is now become wholly Cæsar's.

264. "The business of this man looks out of

him."

In Macbeth we find a similar expression:

What haste looks thro' his eyes.

"So should he look that seems to speak things strange."

265. "

- Cæsar, I shall."

A word is wanting to the measure:

"And how you find her.

find her; go."

Cæsar, I shall."

266. "The beggar's nurse, and Cæsar's."

Some words have been lost; perhaps, these: "The beggar's nurse alike, and mighty Cæsar's." 267. "He gives me so much of my own, as I "Will kneel to him with thanks."

The latter part of this sentence being not comparative, but consequential, the conjunction is false it should be "that," not 66

as.

271. "O, temperance, lady."

O is an idle interpolation, encumbering the

verse.

273. "My country's high pyramids my gibbet."

Mr. Steevens, in order to help the metre, has introduced, from the folio, "pyramides;" but I suspect that some word has been lost. I would read: My country's highest pyramid, my gibbet."

66

My country's highest pyramid," &c.

The singular number is requisite here. She would not be hanged on more than one.

275.

66

An autumn 'twas

B. STRUTT.

(C That grew the more by reaping."

We are not here to understand autumn generally, which does not grow the more, or grow at all, on account of the reaping; but a supposed kind of autumn that grew, &c. A similar mode of expression occurs in Macbeth:

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"Will plead like angels trumpet-tongued," &c.

i. e. Not like angels generally described as being trumpet-tongued, but like such particular angels as are trumpet-tongued.

276. "

His delights

"Were dolphin-like; they show'd his back

above

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I wish that Mr. Steevens, instead of conducting us to another place, where the word dolphinlike was to be found, had explained the meaning of it, here. How are we to understand delights

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being dolphin-like and shewing Antony's back above the element they lived in? Antony himself must be the dolphin, and his delights the element. What the words were intended to express, I suppose is, that Antony, by the dignity and nobility of his deportment, always shewed himself superior to the pleasures in which he was indulging; if this be the sense we should read:

An autumn 'twas

"That grew the more by reaping: in his delights, "He, dolphin-like, display'd his back, above "The element he liv'd in.'

279.

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"Been laden with like frailties, which before," &c.

Like," implying comparison, requires the conjunction "as," instead of "that" awhile ago we had "as" for "that."

282. "Immoment toys."

Trifles inconsiderable.

287. "Nay, that is certain."

Some words, I suppose, have been lost; per

haps:

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I believe the word was "vile," spelled, as Mr. Steevens remarks, vild: but the metrical derangement shews corruption. I imagine that Charmian takes up the dying words of her mistress and applies them to herself:

Cleo. "What shall I stay--"
Char. "

(Dies.)

- In this vile world, alone? "No, I will follow strait-O, fare thee

well!

"Now boast thee death," &c.

Antony and Cleopatra, with instances abundant of those depravations in the sense, construction, and metre, too often recurring throughout these works, is written in our author's best manner; and though Dryden has dilated and nobly refined some passages, the ALL FOR LOVE will, I believe, for interest, animation, and energy, be found far inferior to its original.

The character of Mark Antony, as he is represented here and in Julius Cæsar, exhibits a very remarkable difference; and this, probably, it was that induced Mr. Upton to make, too hastily, the remark which Dr. Johnson controverts. Undoubtedly, the sentiments, diction, and deportment of Antony display, in the present drama, a pomp and stateliness which was no where assumed in the former; but the disparity or alteration did not proceed from Shakspeare's learning, or any purpose to conform to the real practice of his hero, but simply from our poet's knowledge of human life, and his skill in describing it under all vicissitudes; from his having observed that, with many men, a change of fortune will produce a change in their manners, "that lowliness is young Ambition's ladder," and that a mind, such as Antony's, would, at one time, be meek, tractable, and courteous, and at another, haughty, inflexible, and overbearing.

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